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About This Office

To combat human trafficking by supporting and leading systems that prevent trafficking through public awareness and protect victims through identification and assistance, helping them re-build their lives and become self-sufficient.

Purpose

The Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) is responsible for the development of anti-trafficking strategies, policies, and programs to prevent human trafficking, build health and human service capacity to respond to human trafficking, increase victim identification and access to services, and strengthen health and well-being outcomes of survivors of human trafficking. OTIP advises the Assistant Secretary by providing subject matter expertise and overall leadership of anti-trafficking activities under the purview of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). OTIP collaborates with Federal partners and other government and non-government stakeholders to raise public awareness, identify research priorities for ACF's anti-trafficking work, and make policy recommendations to enhance anti-trafficking responses.

Collaborative ...by communicating transparently and considering different perspectives in order to coordinate trafficking response systems

Informed ...by engaging with survivors and other stakeholders in the development of strategies, policies, and programs

2016 Strategic Priorities

Establish a cohesive national human trafficking victim service delivery system by implementing commitments in the Federal Strategic Action Plan on Services to Victims of Human Trafficking in the United States and executing new authorities in recent anti-trafficking legislation. Major activities will include establishing the National Child Trafficking Advisory Council; issuing a series of program and policy guidance on coordination between human trafficking grantees and runaway and homeless youth, child welfare, and unaccompanied children programs; and partnering with Federal agencies on initiatives to strengthen housing for victims of trafficking, outreach to rural communities, and the interconnection between opioid and substance abuse and human trafficking.

Develop a culture of data-informed anti-trafficking programming and policy-making by establishing and pilot testing uniform human trafficking data fields, definitions, and data collection platform. Outcomes will include an assessment of awareness, application, and barriers to using the National Information Exchange Model and National Human Services Interoperability Architecture and the development of an implementation guide to assist organizations to expand coordinated human trafficking data collection.

Institutionalize anti-trafficking coordination and collaboration across health and human service systems by supporting the launch of the HHS Task Force to Prevent and End Human Trafficking; creating the online expansion of the SOAR to Health and Wellness training on human trafficking for health care providers, substance abuse and mental health providers, public health professionals, and social workers; establishing a consortium of training and technical assistance on human trafficking across relevant HHS programs; and incorporating human trafficking into existing HHS prevention strategies.